Tattoo artist Chacha
Where are you from? ‘My hometown is in Hunan. You know, it’s Chairman Mao’s hometown so it’s pretty famous.’
Why did you decide to become a tattoo artist? ‘It was when I was in Yunnan. I realised I should probably start making money so that I could actually buy food. But I didn’t want to buy a tie and work in some office building, so I thought it might be a good idea to start tattooing.’
Were you always good at art? ‘I wasn’t that good in the beginning. When I [started out] in Yunnan I made a lot of horrible tattoo works. People said, “No, don’t go to Chacha. He’s just awful!” But you’ve got to keep practising, and you’ll constantly improve.’
When did you get your first tattoo? ‘My first tattoo was a big mummy skull on my chest. It was really horrible, the line looked wrong, but the tattoo artist said it would be fine after it healed. After it healed, I realised he was just lying. So I was really sad about that. And it’s affected how I tattoo people today as well. I don’t want to make any mistakes because I don’t want my customers to have the same feeling I did back then.’ Read the rest of the article here.